Short Reviews [Neuschwanstein & Sonja Kristina - 2022 - "Alice in Wonderland"]

Back in 1992, Musea sent me ‘Battlement’ to review, and I was just blown away by the album which was simply wonderful. I found it hard to believe that this 1979 release was the only full studio recording of the German progressive rock band, who broke up in 1980. At least that was what I thought. What I had not realised was that in the early Seventies they were impressed by Rick Wakeman’s ‘Journey To The Centre of the Earth’ and developed a lengthy piece of music inspired by Alice In Wonderland, with narration in German. In April 1976 they went into the studio and recorded it and following on from the success of their reissue of ‘Battlement’ Musea released it on CD in 2008. Fast forward to 2022, and the recordings have been restored, and together with an informative booklet and rare images the album has been made available again, but this time with narration by Sonja Kristina. I must confess to not knowing quite how this would work, given that Sonja’s normal forte is being a wonderfully dynamic singer as opposed to voice actor, but I must confess to being very pleasantly surprised. However, there is actually not a great deal of narration on this, as for the most part we have Roger Weiler (6 & 12-string electric guitars), Thomas Neuroth (piano, organ, synth), Klaus Mayer (flute, synthesizer), Rainer Zimmer (bass) and Hans-Peter Schwarz (drums & percussion) demonstrating they are clearly one of the lost bands of the progressive rock scene as these guys should have been huge. The use of flute gives them quite a light folky sound, quite different to the other bands using the instrument at the time, while there is actually not much guitar present with a concentration mostly on the banks of keyboards and the rhythm section driving the music on. The music drops away when it is time for the narration, allowing plenty of room for Kristina to demonstrate her passion for the book, but is soon back with plenty of melodic delights. In some way this does feel quite lightweight when placed against other similar works from the period, but the lightness is one of the things which make this such an easy album to listen to. All power to Musea for searching out the tapes for the original reissue, while the new version with Kristina is an absolute delight and wonderfully dated. It is certainly something I have enjoyed played and can see myself turning back to it often. If you have to discover Neuschwanstein then this is a very enjoyable way to do just that.